It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Football is back, brats are on the grill and everyone has their bibs on. College football Saturdays are unparalleled in sports. March Madness can stake its claim, but anything that lasts just a month is too short to be the best.
What makes college football so great? Take your pick. It could be the atmosphere of the stadiums. There’s a reason college football stadiums make up most of the country’s biggest athletic facilities. People want to see the kids compete. Everyone’s loud, everyone’s drunk and everyone is dying to see their team dust the opponent. It doesn’t get any better than 80,000 wild and reckless fans screaming at the top of their lungs for a couple dozen kids to play a game.
That’s another part of why college football is so fantastic. Every one of the players is just a kid. No one is older than about 25, and the vast majority of them are just 20 years old. These kids have spent the last two decades of their lives working toward a 60-minute exhibition of their hard work.
By nature of the NCAA’s questionable policy on paying players, every one of the players on the field is playing for free. None of them are there to earn a living. As in any profession, every sport has its fair share of players that aren’t desperately in love with the game, but need the money. But in college football, this isn’t the case. Most of the players have nothing at stake. They have no money to lose should they quit. They are just playing football for the love of the game.
For 60 minutes, millions of people train their eyes on 22 young kids who run around a field of grass smashing into each other. And somehow, it’s absolutely mesmerizing. Year after year after year, college football dominates the ratings.
Perhaps that’s because of the sheer volume of games. With 128 teams playing nearly every week, there is never a moment when you can turn the television on during the season and not find a game to watch. And those games between schools of 1,000 students each are almost always the most interesting. They’re competitive, they’re high-quality and they are always on.
Football shouldn’t really be that fascinating. It’s horrifyingly violent and, with thousands of games every year, it seems bound to get repetitive. But it doesn’t. Every single game is a unique storyline with new players rising to the challenge and taking over. No two games have ever been quite alike.
The new College Football Playoff system has only made the season more interesting, as teams now vye for twice as many spots as they did in the old days of the BCS. With a bona fide playoff system, college football has provided an achievable end goal for so many teams.
Gone are the days where all that mattered were a storied program and an undefeated record. Teams can make last second pushes (hi, Ohio State) to squeak into the foursome and dominate the rest of the way. Watching that Buckeyes team that won the inaugural CFP was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. They played without anything to lose, and it paid off.
College football is beautiful. College gameday is even more so. So relish it while you can. Enjoy these moments with your friends before the game and after. Get to the stadium and cheer on your team. You might never get the chance again.
